Chapter 1 (1/2)

Chapter 1 – Prologue＊

In the face of justice, evil will perish.

This is true, regardless of the era.

The embodiment of evil will be turned to cinders by the hand of those who embody righteous thinking.

The world will be bathed in light, the darkness will scatter, the world filled with radiance, and then the land will be granted eternal blessing.

It was the same in his case.

Evil had to perish; the story wouldn’t end otherwise, and for that reason he had to fall.

He bore that fate, that destiny.

And truly, in front of this eyes stood the embodiments of justice.

One stood boldly, wielding the holy sword that was now illuminating the dim hall of the Demon King’s Castle, and with a holy woman, an archmagus, and a sword master in tow.

Bearing the hopes of humanity on those small shoulders, the one who tirelessly worked to make those hopes a reality.

They were the one called the “hero”.

Were it possible, the demon king would have preferred them not come.

It would be better if n.o.body came for eternity, so he thought.

However, that wish of his was easily betrayed.

“You have come, O Hero!”

Though he felt resignation, so as to not let it show, he mustered up the loudest voice he could, and received them; the four who shouldered the hopes of humanity; the four who possessed greater coruage than anyone.

He slowly glared at each one of their faces.

No matter which it was, he could feel anxiety, and fear from them.

However, that was probably inevitable.

After all, they were standing there exposed before the one who ruled over all the demons in the land.

After all, one who possessed such great power that he could easily topple a city, or a country, was standing there before them.

On the contrary, it was praiseworthy that even now their faces held no resignation despite this.

Humans had foolishly come here to challenge him.

Hundreds of humans had perished before the might of the demon king.

The courage that brought them here despite this was praiseworthy, he thought.

The hero spoke.

“Are you, the demon king?”

“That’s right. It is indeed I, who am the master of this castle; the mighty one who reigns over the demons[/magic]; the demon king.”

Though a sn.i.g.g.e.r about his arrogant lines escaped him, this too was what you could call ceremony.

He clearly named himself before the hero whose eyes housed great courage.

“I see. Then… let us settle this. Having come this far, there’s nothing left to say…”

Though it was obvious, the hero’s goal was the destruction of the demon king.

The demon king’s goal was also the destruction of the hero.

This was the logic of the world.

Even if there existed those who held doubts about this, and even if it was the demon king himself who felt this way, the demon king knew very well that there was no meaning in this.

Everything had already pa.s.sed the turning point.

The time when things could still be talked out had gone by a long time ago.

Because of that, without saying a word, the next moment was already decided.

The hero who brandished the holy sword that was pointed his way.

The archmagus who began chanting his spells.

The holy woman who had chanted the scriptures for purifying evil.

The sword master who had begun strengthening his body, with power filled to the brim.

Without any hesitation, the four of them came together at the demon king to kill him.

They wished from the bottom of their hearts for the enemy of humanity to disappear.

After all, humanity’s hatred towards the demon king had already pa.s.sed the point where dialogue was possible.

That’s why their att.i.tudes were extremely matter of course.

However.

It was the same for the demon king.

It was the same for demon race.

He understood that the ending wasn’t something easy to discover.

That at some point they needed to give up, accept, forgive, and join hands was something he also understood.

However, his heart couldn’t accept it.

He had devoted himself to hatred; a desire to rampage until he was exhausted incessantly tempted his heart.

This was something he thought each time he turned his eyes towards those who had clouded his eyes with hatred.

‘We’re exacting revenge on those who not only endlessly killed our brethren, but even denied our right to exist; what’s wrong with that?’ he would think.

‘We’re answering hatred with hatred; what’s wrong with that?’ he would think.

He understood that logically, this would bear not a single result; it was something close to self-satisfaction.

However, even if it wouldn’t bear any result, they could feel self-satisfied.

Their hearts would feel better.

And this wasn’t the case for only the demon king; the same could be said of all the brethren who attacked humanity.

Because of that, though it wouldn’t bear any fruit, he would tell himself that it was necessary as a foundation for the future of the demon race, and continued to fight.

In the end, at this moment, he thought from his heart that he had surely been mistaken, but even so, there was nothing he could do about it.

To begin with, the one who bore the responsbility in the beginning was humanity.

Though it sounded like an excuse, the demon king thought about the cause of this situation.

Long ago, humanity had decided that those who lived by magic; demons, were a harm to this world.

After all, unlike magic beasts which were no more than animals, humans had labelled the demon race who clearly possessed intelligence, reason, and culture as a harm to the world that they wouldn’t accept.

And then they declared that killing demons as one pleased, stealing their lands, and plundering their property was fine.

From the eyes of the demon race, it was the conduct of a thief, and nothing more than the logic of a robber.

Despite this, as though it were natural and just, humanity used the light of G.o.d as a matter of course to claim authority, declared the demon race as enemies of G.o.d, and plotted their destruction.

Those kind of people, and the demon race.

Just which were closer to evil?

In front of the hero party, he thought again about the history of the humans and demons.

And suddenly thought,

‘In the end, both of them were probably wrong.’

‘Both the demon race, and the human race, had probably fatally erred in their choices’, he thought.

It was for this reason that despite both being humanoids who shared intelligence all the same, without comprimising or discussing, they turned their swords on each other, and ended up murdering each other.

Neither had thought back on their mistakes before it came to this, and continued to follow their warped convictions.

That the result was that they turned their trump cards, the hero and the demon king, against each other, might have been in a sense, truly a matter of course.

The victor of this fight would probably hold the world as a conqueror.

Would the demon race rule over the world, or would the humans reign supreme?

This was something that depended on the outcome of this battle.

It was something stupid.

It was something pointless.

Even if one of them won, they would probably begin new fights among themselves.

And once again, they would kill a lot of people, and then one day perish.

It was truly stupid.

Couldn’t they stop it at some point?

Was there nothing they could do about it?

At the very, very end, the demon king lamented over being unable to find an answer. However, even so, it was impossible that he and the hero could join hands now.

Right.

Both humans and demons had reached a point of no return.

Having come this far, there was nothing left to do, but fight.

There was nothing they could do, but fight.

Without them forcing a conclusion to this, the war wouldn’t end.

That’s why…

Having thought this far, the demon king naturally cycled mana through his body, turned to the heroes, and took a stance.

The one who held stronger mana than any demon, that held a stronger body than any being, was the personification of absurd strength; the demon king.

Just by casually collecting the greater mana in his body, the walls and floor of the castle cracked, and the heroes were faced with a Pressure strong enough that they wanted to despair.

It’s probable that a normal human would have died simply by being there.

However, even with a cold sweat, the heroes still stood.

The reason they still lived was because of the power they had trained over a long journey, and the fact that they held enough mana that they could be called monsters by normal standards.

The had overcome countless training, and even being granted the divine protection of spirits and G.o.d, they had already ascended to a level closer to what you would call a demon, rather than a human.

It was doubtful whether they had a place to belong to in their homelands, after defeating the demon king.

Humanity was terribly afraid of those who held great power.

It was for this reason that they feared the the demon race, and ended up persecuting them.

That’s why when they triumphantly returned to their homelands after defeating the demon king…

No, it was probably a needless worry.

Before thinking about that, he had to think about defeating the people in front of him, thought the demon king, focusing himself.

The mana released from his body became increasingly enormous, and just the emission of his mana was enough to overwhelm the hero and his companions.

The holy magic that the holy woman used was wrapped around the heroes, and was successful in weakening the power of the demon king.

However, perhaps because even this wasn’t enough, the four of them were sweating from their brows, and while bracing their legs, they turned sharp gazes towards the demon king.

However, it was not as though they couldn’t fight, and neither was it a major hindrance.

Perhaps because they thought that their chances of winning would decrease with time, the party of four exchanged looks with each other, and without testing the waters, as if to take the demon king down in one hit, immediately released the mana that dwelt in their bodies and began exercising their skills.

Following that, the heroes having smoothly finished their battle preparations, charged at the demon king with speeds unimaginable from the humans that had challenged him previously, and with attacks quite capable of taking a life, charged at the demon king with all their strength.

The battle between the heroes and the demon king was made extremely grand.

However, everything will eventually meet its end.

Thus.

“…Ka, hah-…”

The holy sword was stuck in the demon king’s chest.

The holy light that repelled darkness and magic, being released by the holy sword, was purifying the power of darkness that clad the demon king.

The demon king couldn’t see the faces of the hero very well.

The hero clad in full body silver armour was even now donning a face-mask that revealed nothing but their eyes, after all.

Very few of the people who challenged the demon king had been so completely protected, but the magic that the demon king could use covered a great number of spells.

On the contrary, if you wanted to truly defeat the demon king, this much was natural.

Having said that, no matter how strong normal iron armour might be, it wasn’t enough to defend from even one attack from the demon king’s sword or magic.

However, even fragmented and scratched, with a number of indentations, the armour worn by the hero retained its original form, and was a treasure of an armour, made not of iron but of special materials like sacred silver{mithril}, stalwart iron{orichalc.u.m} and G.o.d iron{hihi’irokane}.

The demon king was pierced by a sword that held a power that was the natural enemy of mana and darkness, and in his receding consciousness, as he looked behind the hero, the companions there were still on guard, pointing their staves and swords at him, and like the hero, they were clad in mana and holy spirit, befitting of their status.

It meant that their preparations were perfect.

Thinking this, a smile escaped the demon king.

That his loss here might have been a matter of course, he thought.

As for why, it seems that justice would always triumph, after all.

The hero, was justice.

And the demon king, was evil.

It was a ‘truth’ that had been pa.s.sed down from a long time ago.

From the perspectives of humans, it was the Truth.

Because of that, it was correct that he had lost, thought the demon king, in the depths of his receding consciousness.

Perhaps because they had found question with the demon king’s expression, the hero spoke to him with a puzzled expression.

Even though conversation should have been impossible, having come to this.

Things like dialogue between the dying demon king, and the hero who was the cause, were needless after all.

However, the gears of fate had turned in an unexpected direction.

Thinking back upon it later, it might have been the moment that a great number of things had changed.

It was a moment of such importance.

“…Why, do you laugh. Are you scheming something?”

“No… nothing at all. Just…”

“Just?”

“The daughter of a friend has her birthday tomorrow, you see. I was just thinking that it’s a shame that I fall here…”

Thinking that it would be wrong somehow to speak the truth, the demon king spoke of something else.

Of course, it was not a lie.

That one of his subordinates and friends had a daughter whose birthday was tomorrow, was the truth.

And that had the heroes not come today, the demon king would have attended that celebration, was also the truth.

But now, that day would never come.

To steal away the demon king’s life for eternity, the hero’s sacred sword continued to release holy spirit.

From the day the demon king perished, the demon race would surely be face persecution.

The humans would do as they liked to them, and they might disappear as a species.

His friend’s daughter would probably lose her young life.